World War One commemoration ceremony of the United Nations with film material from EFG1914

8 July 2014 – With a ceremonial event, the United Nations will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War in the presence of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday, 8 July 2014, 6:30 pm local time, at the UN headquarters in New York. The event will be the only commemoration of WW1 that will bring all the Member States of the United Nations together. A clip with film material digitised by the EFG1914 partners will be shown to several hundred international diplomatic representatives as introduction to the event. European film archives participating in the EFG1914 digitisation project provided the trailer to the UN. It shows original footage from and about WW1, which was digitised with support by the European Commission over the last two years.

Organised by the Permanent Missions of France and Germany, the event commemorates the tragedy of the First World War and sends out a joint message of peace and reconciliation through a speech by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. „We very much appreciate that footage from the valuable films digitised by EFG1914 partners can now be seen on the central commemoration event of the United Nations“, says Claudia Dillmann, Director of the EFG1914 project coordinator Deutsches Filminstitut.

A live webcast of the event will be available 8 July 2014 at 18:30 EDT (0:30 CEST): http://webtv.un.org/